


The Hell of It Is What We Are

by dazylein



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Fluff and Humor, High School, M/M, cool FBI past, new kid, random crack moments
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2019-11-04 01:01:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17888555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dazylein/pseuds/dazylein
Summary: Frank is the new kid in a cold, shitty little town and he just happens to move right next to Gerard. They might start to like each other, but Frank might also keep a secret, or why else would all these weird things start happening in a town where nothing ever happens?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this when I refused to study and hated snow. In other words, this started out as me procrastinating and ended up with pure crack. There's some plot to it though, I promise.

Gerard prayed his car wouldn’t get stuck in the snow as he slowly rolled down the main street on his way home. He even had “Push” on repeat for the entire drive in hopes his car was listening to the song and using it as encouragement to keep going. In summer, the road was twice as wide, and you could clearly distinguish each lane. Right now, a car would have to drive over ten feet high snow banks if they wanted to pass him. It was dark and Gerard could feel the tires slipping on the ice. At least the main roads were plowed, unlike Gerard’s street.

As he turned into his street, he could only see white and grey where concrete was supposed to be. White being the snow, and grey the dirt on top of it. Winter truly was beautiful, especially when it was supposed to be fucking March and spring.

The Beatle’s engine was getting louder as snow began to form around his tires and Gerard pushed on the gas pedal just a little bit harder. He turned the radio up, because if he couldn’t hear the car’s struggle, then the car must not be struggling. It was a calming logic, not a logical logic.

“Please, please, please we’re so close, baby, c’mon just a little bit more,” Gerard muttered before he could stop himself. The last time he had a talk with his car, he’d forgotten all about Mikey in the passenger seat and god knows Gerard would never make that mistake again.

With his right foot stomping on the gas pedal, he was speeding up the hill leading to his house. Not that it really mattered if he was following the speed limit, because even Gerard’s luck wasn’t bad enough to summon a cop car pulling him over on his own street (Not that there was enough space for another car to pull up beside him with all the snowbanks taking up half of the street).

His luck, however, was bad enough to have a gigantic moving truck in his way.

“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” 

He was driving too fast to stop. Gerard swirled over to the other, non-existent lane and pushed on the breaks before he slid into a snowbank and came to a torturously slow halt.

“FUCK!”

Who decides to move into their new house in the middle of the night? Gerard knew the house next to his had been sold, he just hadn’t known that the buyers were complete idiots.

He put the car in reverse and tried to get out of the snow, but his Beatle wouldn’t budge. Great. Fucking fantastic. He’d been so close to his house. Goodbye fun evening, and hello spending all night getting the car free before the cat lady called the towing service again.

And with that goes the welcoming cake for the new neighbors, because Gerard was so not baking them anything. Maybe some cupcakes with a shitload of icing to throw at their window.

Okay, stop it. Gerard didn’t want to blame his own speeding as the result of him being stuck literally twenty meters away from his own house, but he was a responsible person and he had to own up for his mistakes. It wasn’t the new neighbors’ fault. They were probably just an elderly couple who got the PM with the AM mixed up and had the moving guys hired in the middle of the night by accident. Gerard didn’t hold a grudge; he was a mature human being. Even if the dumb truck was blocking the entire street, and if Gerard ever got the car out of the snowbank, he’d still have to walk to his house.

Regardless of his generosity, Gerard couldn’t help but send a dirty look towards the house. It was smaller than his family’s, but more modern looking and high-tech, with a wonderful alarm system that would go off whenever there was a power outage.

As Gerard was sending his dirty look, his eyes widened drastically the moment he caught notice of the small creature walking towards him on wobbly legs.

“Please don’t let them have a kid, please, please, please,” Gerard’s prayer was barely a whisper. The boy living across his house was enough of a pain in the ass for the entire street. Letting him have a playmate was a safety hazard for the retirees and Gerard’s sanity.

The small human being stepped under the streetlight and Gerard breathed out in relief. It was just a short teenager sliding on the ice while fighting his way towards Gerard’s car.

Oh yeah, he’d probably seen Gerard crash into the snowbank. He should probably step out of his car and let his new neighbor know he wasn’t dead.

“Are you okay?” The boy yelled, running over to him, before Gerard could even say hello. He opened his mouth to form a reply, but was interrupted yet again. “Shit, I just saw you dive into the snowbank and- well, I got a bit worried.” The boy, who was now standing beside Gerard, smiled sheepishly at him and Gerard felt as if he’d been catapulted into a cage of unwanted thoughts.

He had hoped -oh had he hoped- the new neighbors would come with a hot son, but never had the thought held any merit. Until now obviously, because wow hottie alarm. Except the guy was wearing a t-shirt and sneakers in snow and freezing temperatures, so clearly he wasn’t the brightest person on the block. Gerard couldn’t even decide if that amount of stupidity was enough to cancel out the hotness; hence the whole cage reference. 

It was a good thing Gerard was shamelessly checking him out, though, because he noticed a small cut on the boy’s forearm. 

“I should be the one asking you if you’re okay, you’re the one who’s actually bleeding,” he pointed out.

“Oh no, that’s just a scratch. I slipped on the ice earlier.”

“The thick layer of ice is what we call seasonal pavement here,” Gerard grinned, and the boy paled, making his rosy cheeks even rosier and making it that much harder for Gerard to think straight (ha). “I’m Gerard, by the way.”

Gerard reached out his hand, too smitten to remember he was wearing the gigantic hockey mittens Mikey had ‘accidentally’ gotten him for Christmas. He watched in horror as the boy’s slender, tattooed fingers hesitantly wrapped around the package deal of his four fingers. Way to embarrass yourself further, Gerard thought.

“You’re a Maple Leafs fan?” The guy asked, letting go of his mittens and Gerard nodded, his mind still dwelling on the handshake.

“Oh wait, no fuck, ew no.” Gerard swore in shock. Oh god, he just imagined himself at a hockey stadium. Cheering. Burn that image, Gerard, before it gets the chance to manifest. Too late. His mind felt stained.

The boy was looking at him weirdly and the awkward silence was only now recognized by Gerard. Maybe he could date neighbor boy after all, since Gerard apparently wasn’t much smarter than him. With the newly emerged silence between them, and Gerard having turned the car radio all the way up earlier, “Push” was blasting through the air.

“I should, uh, probably turn that off,” Gerard mumbled, seeking refuge in his car, where his deeply blushed face could be hidden away from the short, dark-haired boy.


	2. Chapter 2

Frank watches as the boy with the trapper hat and oversized mittens climbs back into the yellow Beatle. Frank really shouldn’t be judging his outfit choice considering he’s currently freezing his ass off. It was supposed to be spring, for fucks sake, why hadn’t anyone told him it would still be winter in this shithole?

The Marshal Service guys were either brilliant or wanted him to suffer. Probably a bit of both. Frank still thinks hiding out on his own private island is the best idea. Especially now that he’s stuck in this sad part of Narnia.

“Sorry about that,” Gerard grins at him, revealing a set of small teeth that makes it irresistible to not smile back. “Also, that’s my house right there. I feel like I should warn you right now that I’m your neighbor and more clumsy incidents like this are destined to occur. Oh, and staying away from Mikey and Brendon is like the ultimate insider-advise.”

“Thanks?” Frank doesn’t know if Gerard is joking or not. He’s not used to friendly warnings anymore and it’s become hard to tell the difference between what he should and shouldn’t be scared of.

His arms feel numb from the cold and he almost regrets checking up on Gerard, because now he’s probably expected to help him dig his car out of the snow and Frank neither has the upper-body strength for it, nor the proper clothing on. Maybe he could pay some of the moving guys a little extra to do the job.

“Gerard, I can’t believe you wrecked the car _again_!” 

Frank didn’t realize he’d been holding eye contact with Gerard until he’s forced to tear his gaze off in order to look at the new boy striding angrily towards them. As he gets closer, Frank notices the boy wears glasses and Frank becomes fascinated by how quickly the snow is building a little wall against the glass. He can't help but wonder how the boy can even see, let alone walk without constantly slipping on the ice. 

“How are we supposed to get to school tomorrow, huh? I have a test tomorrow, I can’t waste my time literally pulling you out of your own stupidity. And I hate the bus, you know I hate the bus. God, I’m going to have to call a cab to take me to school if I want to avoid dumbass-disease. And it’s all your fault technically, so you should pay for it."

Frank may have been an only child, but he knew enough about siblings to conclude, with certainty, that this was Gerard’s brother ranting with every step. The angry look on his face scared Frank a little bit, especially when the boy's eyes fell on him.

“Hi, you must be our new neighbor. I’m Mikey, the smart brother who doesn’t crash cars in the neighbourhood," Mikey’s smile at Frank vanishes the moment he turns back to Gerard. “You owe me for this.” 

Frank is left speechless by the abrupt switch of emotions. He watches even more forlorn as Mikey opens the trunk and takes out two shovels, handing one over to Gerard.

“I can help too,” Frank offers, ignoring the selfish, freezing part of his brain.

“Yeah, so we can take the car and drive you right to the hospital when you catch hypothermia,” Mikey says in a surprisingly friendly tone, while he throws the snow he’d gathered on his shovel at Gerard.

“He’s right,” Gerard tells Frank, forming a snowball with his mittens and aiming at Mikey’s head. “Plus, you probably have thrice as much work to do waiting in your own house and if your parents are anything like ours, you won’t get to go to sleep until all the boxes are completely unpacked.”

Mikey ducks just in time and Gerard’s snowball ends up hitting the moving truck.

“Oops, sorry.” God, Gerard was cute, especially when he smiled at Frank like that. All teeth, and cheeks, and shiny eyes.

“I have a jacket inside, I really don’t mind helping out.” Frank argues, knowing it is the polite thing to say while hoping the brothers would decline his offer.

“Don’t be a dumbass.”

“Dumbass is Mikey’s word of the day,” Gerard adds, still grinning like being out in the cold with his car stuck in the snow counts as one of the best moment of his life. “He’s trying to expand his vocabulary.”

“Dumbass is the state of my current external environment, which you happen to be part of,” Mikey fires back.

Frank follows their friendly banter with a tinge of sadness. It was a bit strange to be thrown into such a normal setting after everything that had happened to him these past few months.

“Seriously, though, Frank. You should really go inside. I’m speaking from personal experience when I say that being out in just a shirt in the middle of winter is guaranteed to keep you sick in bed for a week,” Mikey advises him.

“Are you saying I’m not the only dumbass who’s made some poor winter outfit choices?” Frank asks, grinning for the first time in what feels like forever.

Gerard, next to him, starts giggling uncontrollably then, which makes Mikey throw another snowball at him that ends up hitting Gerard right in the nose.

“Dude, you don’t throw snowballs at faces, there could be rocks in them!” Gerard complains while grabbing another handful of snow and aiming it Mikey’s way.

“And you don’t throw little, small, innocent children in pyjamas out the window on Christmas Morning,” Mikey screams, taking refuge behind the Beatle.

“Wait, what?” Frank asks, suddenly equally curious and terrified to hear the story behind this.

Gerard turns to him, another fit of laughter making his entire body tremble. It's not fair, Frank thinks, that Gerard’s rosy cheeks and pale skin could make his lips and green eyes just fucking pop out and attack you with cuteness, while Frank probably looked like a dying snowman next to him.

“Okay, so, when we were little, or when I was still the big brother in every sense and Mikey just a tiny little creature I could frown down upon, I got this awesome, cool drawing kit on Christmas Eve and literally the next morning, it was like six am or something, Mikey storms into my room with his tiny toddler feet, steps on the kit and breaks half of the pencils.” 

“It was an accident!” Mikey interrupts Gerard’s story.

Frank’s a bit taken aback by the big brother statement because Mikey’s probably a Frank and a half in height and behaving the most mature among the three boys, so naturally Frank had just assumed he was the older brother.

“Anyway,” Gerard continues, and there’s a new spark of hope Frank is feeling that maybe Gerard’s round, baby face makes him look Frank’s age and not a tenth grader. “Obviously, I’m mad that Mikey’s playing elephant and destroying everything-“

“I broke like one pencil.”

“Shh, this is my story, and you were way too young to remember the details. So I yell at Mikey to apologize but he’s being stubborn. My room’s in the basement and the window’s open, so I get this idea and I grab Mikey and put him outside and lock the window. And since it was super early in the morning and I’m a permanent sleep-deprived human being, it’s not my fault I fall back asleep and forget about Mikey outside.”

“Two hours!” Mikey yells, “I was out in my pyjamas for two hours. When mom finally found me, my tears were frozen to my face and I was this close to dying.”

“It was a mild winter,” Gerard points out and another snowball hits him on the shoulder. “But the moral of the story, Frank, is that you should really sit by a fireplace now and warm up because the graveyards here are pretty shitty and I’d rather take you somewhere nice than have you buried in one.”

At least the cold air has finally acquired some perks, because nobody notices that Frank has just turned a deeper shade of red. His mumbled thanks doesn’t get heard either, because Mikey’s snorting: “Gerard stop being such a flirt, you’re making the old ladies in the neighbourhood jealous.”

“Well, it was nice meeting you both, sorry I wasn’t very helpful with your car.” Frank hastily bids his goodbye, ignoring the fact that Gerard’s avoiding his eyes, and makes his way back to his house. Of course, now that he’s stood in the snow for a good fifteen minutes, he doesn’t remember the sheet of ice on the street. Frank’s actually a bit proud that he manages to make it at least to his front yard before he slips on the same patch of ice that gave him a cut on his arm earlier. 

At least the moving truck is blocking the view to the street, so Frank didn’t embarrass himself in front of everybody. Just the five moving truck guys and Andy, who Frank watches storming out of the house and towards him.


	3. Chapter 3

“What the hell are you doing outside? I turned the entire house upside-down, looking for you,” Andy complains, his voice controlled, even if his word choice makes it clear he’s pissed.

“Sorry, I was just saying hi to our neighbours.”

“As much as I love the fact that you’re finally embracing your social side, maybe next time try doing it in the daylight. And don’t run off to strangers alone, when you can’t even cross the street without falling on your ass.”

“Well maybe you could buy me some skates so I can just slide over, since my feet somehow fail to walk flawlessly on the ice,” Frank barks back.

Andy doesn’t look amused by Frank’s wittiness. He just sighs and goes back to what Frank thinks is the kitchen. Frank should really explore the house a bit before he ends up getting trapped in a soundproof closet or something, or he’ll crawl up the chimney trying to find the bathroom. Because Frank is just gifted like that, he can get himself stuck in stupid, unlikely-to-ever-happen-to-anyone-else situations. He’s the one in a billion person of bad luck. Optimistically, at least Frank’s aware of it and it keeps him away from gambling.

“Frank, come here for a sec. I wanna show you how the alarm system works,” Andy hollers and Frank shuffles into the kitchen. On his way, his eyes catch sight of bubble wrap and a grin appears on Frank’s face. He picks up the bubble wrap and starts killing one bubble after the other, not really listening to Andy’s instructions and the blinking lights he’s pointing at that are supposed to represent each room in the house or something. Frank’s not really sure and thinks of Gerard instead, as he presses his thumb and forefinger together until he hears the familiar popping sound.

Andy looks at him annoyed but doesn’t say anything, so Frank doesn’t bother to stop. He used to have this troll doll when he was little, his uncle or some other relative (Frank can’t really remember who exactly it was) gave it to him. The doll was the first thing Frank thought of when he saw strands of Gerard’s hair, they were the exact same shade of fiery red. Except Gerard didn’t look like a troll, more like a fairy.

“Frank, you’re not even listening to me,” Andy complains and gives up trying to educate Frank on how the alarm system works.

“Sorry, I’m just tired,” Frank apologizes and stifles a yawn. He’s popped every bubble on the wrapping paper and now he’s exhausted. Well, not that he wasn’t exhausted before the bubbles, it’s just his mind isn’t distracted enough anymore, so Frank’s conscious of his low energy level.

“It’s been a long day for you, hasn’t it?” Andy looks sympathetic and Frank nods, too tired to speak.

Andy tells him to go to bed and Frank doesn’t argue. He trots upstairs, careful not to miss a step, and realizes belatedly that he has no idea which room is his. He looks around the empty hallway. There are five doors in total, two to his left, and the other three to his right.

The first door he picks turns out to be the bathroom. Frank pees and brushes his teeth, thanking Andy silently for leaving toothpaste and a pack of new toothbrushes by the sink. His hands are still cold from being outside earlier, and the warm water stings his hands. Frank hadn’t even noticed his half-frozen state until now, and he’s slightly dismayed by the fact. He decides to take a quick shower before continuing his quest of finding his bedroom.

The warm water hits Frank’s skin without him feeling any of the warmth. So he turns the water on hot and watches in amazement as his body turns red and the bathroom foggy with steam. He hasn’t gotten a haircut in forever and the long strands of hair take way too much shampoo and effort to rinse. Frank lets the water pour down on his head, too lazy to use his arms, and occupies himself with reading the shampoo bottle. Just like the soap and conditioner, it’s from some motel him and Andy stayed in a few weeks ago. 

Frank sighs. Hating his life but also appreciating the fact that they’re finally settled in a house for now. As shitty and cold as this little city is, Frank hopes he gets to live here for a while in peace.

Once showered, he leaves his dirty clothes in the laundry basket. Because Frank’s not your typical teenage boy- he actually likes being clean and tidy. His therapist once said that keeping his stuff organized is Frank’s way of trying to cope and get control over his otherwise chaotic life, but Frank likes to think he’s just not a slob.

He wraps a towel across his torso and is thankful that the hot water fogged up the mirror, so he isn’t tempted to look at himself. He opens up the window to let the steam out, hoping it won’t set off the alarm because Frank didn’t pay any attention during Andy’s lecture earlier and doesn’t know just what triggers the alarm and what doesn’t. Frank stands by the open window for a few seconds in anticipation, but nothing happens and the house remains quiet. Except now Frank is paranoid that someone will climb in through the window and break into the house. So Frank shuts the window quickly and keeps the bathroom door open instead.

He opens the door closest to the bathroom next and stands in front of a mini-library. A dozen or so shelves are leaning against the wall, each filled to the brim with books. There are a couch and two love-chairs in the center of the room. Frank takes a moment to admire this room. He’s always wanted a house with its own library, not that he has time to read all these books, but it’s just a cool thing to have, Frank thinks.

He leaves the library and doesn’t have to open the last door that’s on the right side of the staircase. “ANDY’s ROOM” is written with a thick, black sharpie on the paper taped to the doorknob. It shows how well Andy knows Frank and his nonexistent sense of direction. Frank is actually surprised Andy didn’t label the other doors as well.

Frank turns around, somewhat regretting he didn’t check out the doors on the left first, because now he has to walk all the way over to the other side of the hallway. The walls in the hallway are blank and beige and in desperate need of some paintings or other decorations. The doors are all the same light brown wooden colour. Frank doesn’t know which door leads to his room yet, but he’s already playing with the idea of painting it, so he can easily set it apart from the other four. Red maybe, the fiery kind, or green like Gerard’s eyes.

It only takes him a second to realize the door he’s just opened is the one to his bedroom. Frank doesn’t step inside, instead, he closes the door again and checks out the last room. He’s explored every other room on the floor, he might as well finish his tour.

The last room is small compared to the others and filled with moving boxes. Frank’s not curious enough to peek inside the boxes, it’s probably just dull stuff like plates that didn’t fit into the kitchen. Frank shuts the door and goes back to his bedroom.

It’s a spacious room. There’s a huge king-sized bed, a desk, two chairs, a few shelves and a drawer, all in the same wooden brown color that matches the floor. The walls are the same color as the hallway, which really bothers Frank because he likes his room to be dark.

His room is in the corner of the house, and there’s a window facing the house next to his, and on the other wall is a glass door leading to a small balcony and overlooking the garden located in the back of his house. Frank makes sure the balcony door is locked before he slips into the bed that’s thankfully already been made, probably by Andy. Frank makes a mental note to thank him tomorrow morning. He eyes the moving boxes cluttering the floor with tired eyes. He’s not looking forward to unpacking tomorrow. With all his old stuff filling the shelves and drawers, it’ll make this house feel like it’s his home, which it isn’t.

Frank didn’t have a lot of friends back home, and he hated most of his neighbours. Still, he misses them. It’s too quiet without hearing Mr. and Mrs. Jackson argue, or without Mr. McAdam’s dog’s constant barking. There’s no sound of screeching tires and sirens either and that itself is just unsettling to Frank. But it’s the silence that’s bothering Frank the most, he needs the white noise of New Jersey at night.

He gets up and walks over to the window, cracking it open just enough to hear the wind howl. Frank forgets all about his earlier fear of someone breaking into his house.

One of the neighbour’s windows is directly opposite to Frank’s and is halfway open. Although the curtains are drawn, Frank can see that the light in the other room is still on and he can make out the silhouette of two people standing inside it. One short, the other tall.

“Get out of my room, Mikey!” He hears Gerard’s voice and Frank finds himself wide awake at the sound.

“Just because you threw half of your stuff in here doesn’t make it your room.”

“Yes it does, now get out. Go to sleep, you have school tomorrow.”

“So do you!” Frank hears Mikey’s protest and Frank can’t help but smile at their mundane argument.

“Yeah, but I’m older and need less sleep. Babies like you need like twelve hours of sleep or else they get cranky.”

“I’m not a baby!”

“See, you’re already cranky. Go to sleep or I’ll put a pacifier in your mouth to shut you up.”

“Oh, please do. I’d love to see you try.”

There’s a loud clang and then Frank hears something break.

“Ow, fuck, stop pulling on my hair!” Gerard yelps.

“Not until you apologize.”

“Fuck you!” Gerard spits. “Okay, ow fucking stop, I’m sorry, okay? You’re not a baby, you’re a heartless giant who uses his sheer physical strength to make up for his lack of brains.”

“You really don’t know how an apology works, do you?” Mikey asks, but at least Gerard’s not screaming in mild pain anymore, so Frank assumes Mikey let go of him.

“Not until you learn how to respect the elderly.”

“Yeah, whatever. Goodnight grandpa.”

Frank hears the door in the other room shut as Mikey leaves and Gerard starting to rustle through some papers. After a minute or so, Gerard closes the window and that’s the last Frank gets to hear of him.

Franks sighs, feeling a bit like a creep for standing by the window and eavesdropping on the brothers’ conversation. He remembers how tired he’d been a few minutes ago and a loud yawn escapes his lips. Exhausted, his mind slowed down and slightly less chaotic, Frank crawls back into his bed and closes his eyes.

It’s not difficult to fall asleep. The bed is warm and soft and Frank thinks of Gerard again, or better put, of him and Gerard in an alternate universe where Frank is cool and a hero and Gerard is his fairy. Frank falls asleep with the image of Gerard with flowers in his red hair and wings attached to his bare back.


	4. Chapter 4

Mikey walks sleep-drunkenly into the kitchen and spots Gerard sitting at the table, a cup of coffee in his hand, and a spoon full of fruit loops in the other.

“Oh my God!” Mikey cries out dramatically when he notices Gerard’s wet hair and clean yellow sweater and blue jeans. Gerard looks at him, and Mikey quickly covers his eyes and walks over to the coffee machine. “I can’t look at you,” Mikey explains. “Why are you even awake at this ungodly hour?”

“What’s wrong with Mikey?” His mom asks and sits down next to Gerard. Mikey doesn’t need to look to know Gerard is shrugging his shoulders in an uncaring manner. “Gerard, did you take a shower?”

Mikey can’t withhold his laughter anymore, he’s just glad he didn’t have any coffee in his mouth. It’d be a shame if he spilled some. “I think Gerard hit his head yesterday when he drove into the snowbank, mom.”

Gerard ignores them both and keeps slurping on his coffee, albeit obnoxiously loud.

“Gerard, stop slurping. Did you two meet the new neighbours yet? There’s a boy who apparently goes to your high school,” their mom asks.

Gerard shoots Mikey a warning look, before Mikey even has the chance to think of something clever to say. “We met him last night, he helped us get the Beagle out,” Gerard answers. “I’m gonna pick him up and drive him to school, too.”

“That’s actually very kind of you,” Donna says, surprised that her son is trying to be social on his own for a chance.

“Makes you wonder who he showered for,” Mikey mutters into his mom’s ear and a knowing smile appears on her face.

“You know I can hear you whisper, right?” Gerard asks rhetorically before he drowns the rest of his coffee and gets up. “You ready to go?”

“No, I still need to eat.”

“Guess, you have to take the bus then.” Gerard smiles bitter-sweetly at Mikey and walks to the front door to put his boots, hat, scarf, mittens and winter coat on.

“I’ll be ready by the time you’re done scraping the ice off the windshield,” Mikey retorts but makes sure to grab a bagel and finish his coffee in record time.

“So, who’s this new boy?” His mom asks, once Gerard has gone outside.

“Uhm, I don’t actually know his name. He seems nice, though,” Mikey answers truthfully. “You know, Gerard didn’t even ask him if he wants a drive to school.”

Donna cocks her eyebrow. “Let’s hope he needs one then.”

“Yeah,” Mikey nods. “I could get used a clean and awake Gerard.”

*

Gerard stands in front of the new neighbour’s door for a good minute, debating whether or not he should just go back to his car and forget this morning ever happened. This was a bad idea. 

What if he’s still asleep? Or homeschooled? Wait, no, Gerard’s mom said he went to school with Mikey and him. Maybe he’s not enrolled yet, after all, he’s just moved here. He’s probably going to wait a few days before starting school. Fuck, Gerard didn’t really think this plan through properly.

He musters up all the courage that he has and presses the doorbell. 

Silence.

Shit. Gerard turns around and walks back slowly to his house, careful not to slip on any ice.

“Hello?”

Gerard spins back around so fast he forgets all about the ice and falls on his ass.

“Morning,” Gerard grins up at his new hot neighbour, who’s standing in his doorway in black jeans and a grey hoodie. There’s a stinging pain shooting up Gerard’s tail bone from where he hit the ice, but despite that, he’s still grinning. “What are the chances of you needing a ride to school?”

“I was actually thinking of taking the bus, Mikey made it sound like such a dreamy and smooth ride,” the boy jokes. Gerard breathes out in relief and tries not to dwell too much on ‘smooth ride’ and the images that construct in his head with it.

“Mikey has low standards, don’t listen to him. Drive with me and you get the adrenaline rush and anticipation of which-snow-bank-will-I- hit-next, for free!”

“No charge?” The boy asks in faux disbelief.

“Nope, I just need you to promise not to fuck with my music and the passenger seat is yours,” Gerard is still smiling like crazy up at him and his smile only spreads wider when he sees the boy laugh back.

“Deal. I just need to put my jacket on and get my stuff.”

Gerard could have drowned ten espresso shots and his heart wouldn’t have beaten as fast as it does now. Not only was the boy drop-dead gorgeous and willing to spend time with him, but he could also go along with Gerard’s humour. Now all he needed was for the boy to come out the door with a wolverine backpack and Gerard would just drop dead right there on his driveway.

“Wait,” Gerard yells, before the front door was shut, and the boy turns back to look at him. “What’s your name?”

“Uhh, it’s Frank.”

“Nice meeting you, Frank.”

“You too Gerard.”


	5. Chapter 5

Mikey was unnaturally quiet in the backseat and if Gerard wasn’t busy driving and mentally padding himself on the back on repeat for having an insanely hot guy sitting in his car and jamming out to his music, he’d worry about Mikey’s out of character behaviour. He’d expected his brother to at least try to get Frank to sit in the back and claim the passenger seat. But Mikey was silently sitting with his textbook in his lap and reading over the chapter, Gerard assumes, his test for today was on.

“Do you know your schedule yet?” Gerard asks Frank. He decides that looking at Frank is more important than the road and, as a result, gets to see Frank shake his head.

Thankfully, they live in a little, tiny shithole outside of the equally tiny, shitty, city. Although calling it “city” was an exaggeration as it was the size of a village at best. So considering the few people living in Gerard’s neighbourhood, the fact that it’s eight in the morning, and the lack of reason why anyone would drive to his neighbourhood at this hour, it was actually fairly safe for Gerard to stare at Frank, since his was the only car currently driving on the road. 

Frank stares back at him, and Gerard is captivated by his eyes. They’re the most beautiful eyes Gerard has ever seen. His mind flies almost automatically to the set of water paint colours he uses in art class, and what shades of brown and green he would have to mix in order to get Frank’s exact eye colour.

Frank opens his lips and it takes Gerard a quick moment to remember he’d asked Frank a question. “No idea. I just hope it’s not AP math or some shit like-”

“Gerard, watch out for the deer,” Mikey suddenly yells, looking up from his textbook with wide eyes.

Gerard jumps in his seat at his brother’s outcry. His right foot presses down on the brake pedal while his left pushes against the dead pedal like it would help somehow stop the car.

The deer stands stock-still in the middle of the road, stares at him, and Gerard uses his arm muscles to their full extent as he swirls the steering wheel to the left, where it stops right at the edge of the lane. The deer finally realized that it should probably move and runs away to the other end of the road, into the forest where it disappears from Gerard’s sight.

“Fuck,” Gerard breathes out and leans his head against the wheel. He turns the engine off, which automatically turns off the music, and the three boys sit there in complete silence.

“Everyone alright?” Gerard asks after he’s composed himself enough to speak. He glances quickly in the rear-view mirror to check on Mikey who’s staring out the window, after the deer. 

Gerard’s pulse slows down only gradually and he takes another quick breath before he looks over to Frank. “Shit, Frank, I’m so sorry, this never happened to me before, I swear.”

Frank’s skin is pale and his pupils are blown, but he still manages to smile weakly at Gerard. “I’m fine. Really, Gerard, stop staring at me with that guilty look on your face. Are you even good to keep driving?”

“Yes, yes,” Gerard shakes his head, before he realizes he’s contradicting his words with his head movement, and then starts to nod.

 

*

 

Frank can’t concentrate. The car radio is still off. Mikey’s back to studying and Gerard’s eyes are practically glued to the empty road.

It’s Frank. Bad luck just follows him around. First, Gerard drives into a snowbank the moment Frank moves into his street, and now Gerard almost hit a deer, when that’s never happened to him before. Surely, it can’t be a coincidence that Frank’s the constant variable in both scenarios.

He leans his head against the window, his hair getting stuck to the cold glass, and closes his eyes. He just can’t escape, can he? Frank involuntarily thinks of what happened in New Jersey and that’s when his thoughts get out of control and become too much for him to handle. He snaps his head back, and brings his right hand to his lips, biting down hard on the knuckle of his thumb, until the pain supersedes the thoughts of his past.

Nobody in the car notices Frank, and he looks down at his bloody thumb, wondering not for the first time, what the chances of an evil witch having cursed him at his birth are.

They arrive at the school twenty minutes later, and Frank gets to see his new high school for the first time. It’s an ugly, old brick building with Asher High School written in big, yellow letters that match the colour of Gerard’s sweater. Next to it is a smaller, even more worn-down looking building that has Gymnasium written over various layers of graffiti.

As soon as Gerard finds a spot in the narrow, filled student parking lot, Mikey hops out of the car with a quick goodbye and storms into the school.

Frank is still too out of it and barely hears Gerard yelling ‘Good Luck on your test’ after Mikey.

“C’mon Frank, I’ll show you where the office is, so we can get your schedule and stuff.”

Gerard grabs him by the elbow when Frank doesn’t react and leads him through a completed deserted schoolyard.

At this point, Frank isn’t even surprised at the lack of people. It’s still really fucking cold outside and the wind is blowing up into Frank’s nostrils, making the little hairs in his nose freeze and that’s really not a pleasant feeling to have. He would seriously question a person’s sanity if he saw a student lingering outside right now. Frank doesn’t even know how he managed to survive last night without as much as a jacket on.

“Don’t run, you’ll slip again,” Gerard says warningly to him when Frank starts to speed up his walk towards the school building, shivering with every step he takes.

“Jesus fuck, why does it have it be so cold here?” Frank complains. He stops looking at his feet and glances up at Gerard, waiting for an answer because this was not a rhetorical question. Frank  
would really like to know why anyone would choose to turn this place into a settlement. It’s like Antarctica here, and nobody lives in Antarctica, at least as far as Frank is informed.

Gerard either doesn’t know the answer or decides it’s best not to tell. He just sends a crooked smile Frank’s way (that would make his heart and insides feel all warm and fuzzy if he wasn’t completely frozen right now).

The smile is enough to distract Frank, which means he’s not paying attention to picking up his feet and, as a result, experiences the familiar feel of the rubber on the sole of his shoe sliding on ice.

‘Shit, not again,’ Frank thinks miserably, as he prepares himself to fall down on his already-bruised-ass once again.

But instead of cold and hard ice, Frank feels a warm, soft hand on his back.

“You need like one of those butt pads.” Gerard laughs, steadying Frank until he’s not toppling backwards anymore. “You know, if you keep slipping like this, Mikey should start playing hockey again and you two can have a competition in falling down on your asses.”

“Ha. Ha.” Frank tries to sound unamused and insulted, but Gerard’s eyes are blinding his sour mood like the rays of the sun. Plus, his hand is still on Frank’s back and Frank is really enjoying the feel of Gerard’s fingertips gently pressing into his back.

“Welcome to Asher High,” the hand disappears from Frank’s body and wraps around the old, metal door handle instead. Gerard pulls it open and lets Frank enter first. The heat coming from the inside of the building is a godsend to Frank’s numb and unhealthily red face. He inhales deeply through his nose and takes a step inside.

 

*

 

“Hi, I’m Frank Iero. I’m new here,” Frank tells the receptionist when they reach the office. The old lady gives him a once-over and then disappears without a word.

Frank looks at Gerard a bit forlorn when they stand in the empty office for more than five minutes.

“Did she like, die or something?” Frank whispers after another few minutes pass by without the receptionist’s return.

“Nah, it always takes her this long.”

“Oh goody,” Franks says sarcastically and Gerard winks at him. Gerard. Winks. At. Him.

Forget the old lady, Frank’s the one dying here. His heart flutters like he’s being chased by a storm of butterflies and his breath ends up going to his head, filling the empty slot of his brain that the butterflies seemed to have eaten.

“You winked at me,” Frank states, trying to process his thoughts and failing completely.

Gerard blushes. Not the cute rosy cheeks blush, but the blush that makes his entire face turn five different shades of red.

“I, uhm, yeah, I mean, I,” Gerard stutters, scratching the back of his head, looking for words his lips can’t formulate.

Thankfully, the door opens at this exact moment, and the receptionist’s squeaky rasp of a voice asks: “You're Frank Yero?”

Frank nods, tearing his gaze off Gerard. The receptionist hands him a piece of paper and an agenda, asks Frank if he requires a tour guide, and then sits behind her desk when Frank denies.

“What’s your schedule?” Gerard peeks over his shoulder and Frank catches a waft of vanilla as Gerard leans over.

It takes a few seconds for Frank to collect himself again. “Uhm, Math, English, KNITTING? What the fuck?” Frank almost screeches. Surely, they’ve made a mistake in his schedule. Knitting shouldn’t even be a class, as far as Frank is concerned.

He hears giggling and sends Gerard a death stare. If he weren’t so angry, Frank would be mesmerized by the way Gerard’s small, front teeth are biting down on his lower lip, and his cheeks are turning into two little balls, all in the attempt of trying not to laugh.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” Frank starts to protest, walking back to the receptionist. “I don’t knit.”

“Oh no worries. There’s no experience necessary for the knitting course.”

“No, I mean, I want to switch into a different class.”

“Oh,” the receptionist exclaims again, albeit a bit disappointed. “Let me see what other courses we have open for third period.”

Frank watches in trepidation as her old, wrinkly fingers hover over the keyboard and type one letter at a time. It physically hurts him to watch the receptionist work with the computer. Frank has to resist the urge to snatch the keyboard away from her and type everything in himself. 

“There’s AP Calculus, second-year French, but you’d need a pre-requisite course for this one, and physics," she says while adjusting her glasses for the third time since Frank started speaking with her.

Frank exhales sharply. Calculus was out of the question, and he’d always hated physics with a passion. 

“I think I’ll stick with knitting.” Maybe knitting would be easy. Frank might be devastated, but not without any hope to his name.

The moment the two boys left the office, Gerard explodes with laughter.

“Shut up,” Frank says, elbowing him softly in the ribs.

“Man, I’m so sorry. Knitting class is the worst, like it’s not even as easy as it sounds,” Gerard pads him on the shoulder empathetically. “Anyway, I gotta go to class. Your math class should be just around the corner. We have English together so I’ll see you then.”

With that, Gerard hops down the stairs and Frank looks gloomily down at his schedule. Math, English, Knitting, Biology, and... P.E.????

“Oh shit no.” Frank groans, staring at the two letters that will require him to run around in circles with sweat dripping down his face. He hates gym class. Not that Frank is against being athletic, he just doesn’t like the effort it takes to bring new gym clothes every day. At least he has it last period, so Frank won’t need to rush through a one-minute shower in between classes.


End file.
